


Candy Quest

by athenasun



Category: Fairy Tail, Kobato
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, F/M, Gen, Kobato AU, Multi, another chance in life, x-over
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 21:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11471595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athenasun/pseuds/athenasun
Summary: [ NOVEL ] Caught in the middle of the Dragon-Demon War, Gray is in the middle of life and death. Upon the Deities' judgment, they grant him a second chance by sending him to the living world with the Demon who have ensued the war, Lucy, to collect frozen hearts (which look like crystal candies) from people. If he fills his bottle with 'candies' in the given deadline, he can live as normal as he was supposed to be, and grant his wish.Inspired by CLAMP's Kobato.An Athena Throwback 2017.





	Candy Quest

**Author's Note:**

> Candy Quest is a 2015 planned novel by Athena, in collaboration with one of her first fan and friend, Yin. It is based on the creative universe by CLAMP in the anime and manga Kobato. The story adapts the quest of Kobato, caught in the gods' war, given a second chance. The difference in this fanfiction is that the roles are gender bent to express a different feel from its based-upon series.
> 
> Cover design, characterizations, and writing are mine.

  
  
 

 

**HE DOESN'T THINK HE DESERVES AN 'X.'**  The red mark on his cheek is bright to the eyes and the stuffed bunny who did it looked satisfied on her work, only to realize that it doesn't do her any good, too.

"Why can't you just do what I tell you?" The stuffed bunny, her yellow bow resting on the base of her left ear, huffed in annoyance. "How can a little good harm you, really?" She crossed her stuffed arms on her chest, blocking the view of her question mark-patterned sun dress. Almost unnoticeably, around her neck was a black collar, a gold pendant with four letters rested on her chest. In serif, pillow-embossed letters spelled her name: Lucy. 

Lucy examined his stature: the aura of apathy cringes her. He seemed too hopeless and she even thinks it was all a dream: that he chose to be on a quest for his wish. She thought he'd just be choosing her solo doom for committing that sin. And causing him to lose practically everything but his soul. 

"See that face?" out of thin air, Lucy summoned a handheld mirror to the young man's face, the bright red X stung his eyes, which was a very slight movement, and the only ones he pulled as his appearance is bared to him. He scores a hundred for pulling the best poker face. "That's the face of a man who'd just go bald alone and helpless!" Lucy's little feat had caused a strawberry to rain down on her head. 

Another of her punishment for  _that_  sin.

Oh how she hates strawberries.

And everything salmon pink.

The infuriation was not affecting the man, he just looks at the bunny, and unaware of his eyes' focus, he was looking at another hill of cherry blossoms, passed Lucy's stuffed toy body, at the hues of spring and life around him. They kept telling him-they, as in Lucy and other deities-that he only had his soul left because of what happened. Strangely, he felt... nothing. The eerie emptiness, the flat line of his feelings, felt like home. He feels... the way he used to feel, he had sensed. Empty and without anything to worry about. 

The blur of what had happened were only glimpses of lights, flashing, and only words made sense. There was something that made his flat line of feelings curve up, as if, something proved he still has a heart and it appeared to be true when his heart beat. Beneath the series of blurred memories, the deities had asked him about his wish. The word 'wish' surged into him like a knife, stabbing him so deep, that he choked with a 'yes,' even without hearing the consequences. 

There was something innate and demanding inside him. Something he wishes for. 

"I have decided!" the bunny hopped to his face, her marker making letters on his skin-on his forehead! 

"Get off!" the first two words he even managed to say after all the bunny's rants went like a growl. Her stuffed paws and legs pressed to his face, even pressing down his nose.

"Done!" Lucy said after fast strokes with her marker, hopping down, on his lap. Four letters, like her name, in red, looked back at her. She smirked back, as if those letters were better on communicating than the man, who's now looking at the letters through the mirror she had summoned earlier. 

"Gray?" He asked, looking up at her. 

"Yuppies. Gray." Lucy capped her marker as she nods. She looked up at him. 

"You'd need a name. So I gave you one." Matter-of-factly, she agrees with herself and plops down on his crossed legs. "I'm your guardian anyway." She knows he wouldn't ask her why she had named him as such, and it disappoints her being unable show off her wit. "Now do me a favor and let's get this done this for your wish." 

The word anchored him back from another round of dillydallying (while rubbing off the letters on his forehead). "My wish..." He trailed off. His tone took Lucy to his face. The same old poker face. Veiling his desire? She asked herself. The man was a puzzle to solve and naming him into some neutral color-a color of question mark and in-between-made Lucy feel proud of herself. Her primary task was not to unravel him, but it requires her to. "To get your wish, you must not just try to participate." She thinks it's getting to him. Her words. 

"I just need to pass this test?" He asks, but not fully asking. Gray doesn't fully know how the consequences would affect him or Lucy, but his new name kind of connects to him, gets to him, like a sad kind of joke. He doesn't know why. Like his wish, he doesn't want to tamper with things he cannot understand. 

Lucy hopped to the body bag, blue, matching Gray's shirt which says, "My Second Life, Yay." They stepped out of the shade of the cherry blossom tree, faint reds of her marker on his face. 

They had trudged down the hill, the farthest from the crowd. Spring air blows to Lucy's fur, she hang there, riding the body bag, doll eyes looking around, for a possible subject. She didn't dare look up or move to see Gray. She was too busy looking at families having their lunch, friends hauled in a hill taking pictures when Gray stopped by the path downhill, leading to the row of stalls selling charms and confectioneries with their back on the river. At the end of the line is the shrine, at each side of the wide steps was an exhibit, artworks lined up for the public eye. Confetti of cherry blossoms made the view stunning. 

Gray takes his time strolling. Lucy admires the colors and the life that links them all up into one picture of a classic spring. As they passed by a stall of charms, a voice called on, "Do you want your second life to be filled with happiness?" Gray looked the voice's direction, to find the charms stall tended by a beautiful maiden with snow white hair, with ornaments of cherry blossom motif. 

Lucy felt the maiden's eyes soften at hers. Meeting her doll eyes. She gasped her name, "Mirajane." 

Gray stepped to the front of the stall. "So you picked this place, Lucy." She says, tucking locks of stray hair behind her ear. Gray's brows knit as the maiden talked to Lucy, a simple stuffed toy to many normal people's eyes. 

"The deities did." Lucy answered. She looked at Mirajane, then, speaking to Gray while eyes on Mirajane, she explains. "She's the guardian of people's wishes in this place." 

"You make it sound so magical." Mirajane smiled on Gray's way, "I'm a shrine maiden. I get to be in-touch of some deities from time to time." 

Gray's eyes felt uncomfortable for staring at such a beautiful face, drifting his eyes to the charms below. "They're free." Mirajane notes, as the young man fiddle over charms, trying not to steal another glance. 

"She's taken, Gray." Lucy teases, pressing her stuffed arm on Gray's stomach, earning a grunt and a, "Shut up, stupid bunny." 

Mirajane lovingly watched the little moment, commenting, "You're such a nice pair." The remark made Gray and Lucy look up at her, with narrowing eyes (and Gray a faint blush). Mirajane giggled at the attention and response, "I wish for the success of your quest." She handed a charm, a crystal blue glass with a pearl trapped inside with the characters "colorful life" stroked with a thin brush. "It's a very limited charm, I tell you." Gray nodded a thanks, and as he turned, Mirajane called to them again. "Don't lose your way." 

When Gray's figure slowly disappeared through the thickening crowd, Mirajane's face softened, as if dreading what would happen next. "...Especially you, Lucy." On the palm of her hand rests another charm, crystal pink, with a red pearl trapped inside and characters of "firework love" stroked messily. She looked up to the sky littered by soft pink petals.  _What do you want to happen?_

 

* * *

 

Gray looked at the charm, sliding it inside his pocket afterwards. They have reached the exhibit, and still no one as a subject of the test. What if the world doesn't need some help? He asked himself, his eyes darting from one group of people to another. Lucy had been pestering him for almost all day to 'participate' and 'help the world' which really sounded a bit too big for him. The labor of even caring takes up a lot of effort.

It's spring. No one needs help. Everyone gets to have fun. Nothing's going to happen-"Mister." A young girl tugs on Gray's pant leg, no less than four or five years old. "I...I'm lost..." The little girl's lower lip was quivering. "Can you please give me a lift!" she bowed her head, and when she faced him, she was on the verge of tears, her eyes glistening, watery. Gray's face that was at first all poker face, changed into a flustered one. For some reason, he doesn't like kids crying in front of him.

At his moment of scattered thoughts, he grabbed Lucy by the ear and shoved her to the little girl's face. "You can't cry! Hold on to this stupid bunny." He says, abruptly. He squats to the little girl's height. "That stupid bunny will..." What will Lucy do? "That bunny will... tell you you're stupid for crying like a baby."

Inside Lucy's head, she's cursing Gray for shoving her fragile stuffed toy body and cursing him a bit more for being so dumb at comforting little girls. To both Lucy in Gray's surprise, the little girl giggled to Lucy's bunny cheeks, "She talks?"

"That bunny stuff toy has a very bad mouth." Gray nods, dabbing at Lucy. "Just chant: dear bunny, dear bunny, stupid, stupid toy." 

The little girl's grin showed the gap between her front teeth. She chants, "Dear bunny, dear bunny, stupid, stupid toy~" She holds Lucy on arm's length, waiting for her to speak.

"Don't cry!" the toy said, which Gray kind of think was cute of the loud little devil trapped inside. It made the little girl beam with excitement. "That's stupid!" Lucy made extra gestures for the talking stuffed toy act.

Maybe this was it? Gray asked himself. He helps the little girl, May, over his shoulders. "Tell me where to go." Gray says. The little girl on his shoulders hadn't let go of Lucy yet, and had rested the bunny on top of his head. They roamed around the exhibit, passed paintings of forest animals and kids at play, of swimming pools turning into oceans, passed portraits of families, of musicians and of lovers, of the town of Magnolia and its famous flower garden.

"Who were you separated from, anyway?" Gray asked.

"My babysitters." May looked over heads, finding them, searching.

"You have many babysitters, huh?" Gray asked, letting the young girl navigate their way.

"They babysit me and my sisters."

"Sisters?"

"We're triplets!"

"Ah-will you see them faster up high?" They were now on the other side of the exhibit.

"Mm! They have dyed their hair, you see."

"Ah. With what color?"

"Colors of their favorite things."

"One is blue because she likes the waters a lot and one is-Juvia!!!" May waved Lucy in the air screaming, then, directing Gray, "Round up on that family portrait, mister!"

Gray obliged and soon, they had met up with a young woman, possibly around sixteen or seventeen, who had rushed to them. "May!" She was saying other things but ended up muffling them as she pants and huffs, azure hair in a bun. "Thank god..." She wipes her brow.

Gray lets May down, problematizing the possibility of her wanting to take Lucy home, ignoring the fuss Juvia-as he had heard May call the young lady-makes. Lucy was obviously out of herself, dizzy, being dragged to and around. For once, he cared a bit for his guardian. "Thanks for-" Juvia starts to thank Gray when another shout from May interrupted her. 

"Naatsssuuu~" The little girl waved Lucy around a bit too hard as a young man trotted in, carrying another little girl on his shoulder and one more little girl racing him.

"May's got a bunny!" The little girl aced Natsu by sprinting to May. "Won over you, Natsu!" She sticks out her tongue and grins at May. "Where were you at?"

"Enough chatting." Juvia cuts in. "We need to thank him." She gestures to Gray, giving him a small, apologetic smile for all the fuss.

"Oh, May's got a bunny!" Natsu reached them, sweaty and grinning. Juvia sighs at Natsu's reaction.

Gray stood there, back to his normal apathetic self. The two babysitters May had were almost same-aged. And it was true: they had dyed their hair. Juvia had azure hair tied in a bun while her bangs were swept up in place with blue hair pins. Natsu, again, thanks to May's passionate Lucy-waving while calling his name, had salmon pink hair. Almost the color of cherry blossom spring.

 

* * *

 

They finally got some time to stay still, back atop a hill under the cherry blossom shade. Lucy had recovered from the dizzying chain of events. She had passed out, unfortunately. "Did I do it?" Gray asked as she plop up.

"Where is May and her gang?" Lucy asked, her choice of words a bit affected. She was shook to her wits, thanks to May. She had kind of slacked off her task as guardian, missing the point of making Gray 'participate.'

"Gone. Home, maybe." Gray answered. "Did I do it?" He asked again. He cannot consider what he had done. It felt... so small. Too little. Not worth his wish's weight.

"We should ask the deities." Lucy said, thinking over what would have had happened, the what-if's Gray had unconsciously prevented to happen. Surely, Gray doesn't look at it that way. But it's the deities to judge.

Lucy prayed to the deities and then, after a few moments, a flower bunny using a sunflower as parachute, dropped a four-leaf clover to Gray's lap.

"You're in luck." Lucy said.

"That's it...?" Gray asked, not thinking much of giving a little girl a lift and a small moment with a bunny stuffed toy to grant him a pass to the possibility of his wish coming true.

"That's it." Lucy confirmed.  
She didn't bother tell him that May was bound to die that afternoon by straying too far and drowning at the river, at the back of the stalls.

 

* * *

 

Late that night, at the tallest hill, when everyone was asleep, Gray stood opposite to a horned figure, with a flowing black dress. Lucy in her old form. As a demon. The last time she'd be in this form until Gray's wish come true. Her blonde hair is almost white in the light of the moon. The four-leaf clover reconstructs itself, in thin air, shaping into a crystal green container. The scar of that sin glows under Gray's shirt, taking into a shape of a tattoo of a clock.

"You'd have a year to fill up this bottle with the gaps inside people's hearts." Lucy recites the contract. "For that time, we are bound. As Killer and Victim. As Sinner and Sin." She steps forward, Gray closed his eyes, as Lucy pressed her hand on his chest, at the center of the clock tattoo, as if letting the pain of the scar get absorbed in her body. "You are Gray. I am Lucy. And this is our contract."

 

* * *

 

\-------♦♦♦♦  **cαηd** **ყ** **qυєsт**  
  
_f o u r  -  l e a f e d  c l o v e r_

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story about chances.  
> Firsts, seconds, and infinities of chances.  
> Oh, and bunnies, too.  
> Don't forget that.


End file.
